Iron Lotus
by BellatrixLestrangey
Summary: Modern AU in which Kuvira fronts a metal band alongside Baatar, Ming-Hua, and P'Li. Two of the band members just can't seem to get along and battle of the bands is just around the corner. Iron Lotus goes head to head with their rival band, formed by our favorite Fire Nation siblings. M for staged incest...you'll see when it comes up.
1. Iron Lotus

The room fell silent for a moment's time. The wail of the guitar no longer piercing the room, the bass no longer alive with music, her lips unmoving. The only sound left was the final echo of the last dream beat. The silence only held for a moment or two.

The crowd erupted into hysteric clapping and whooping. The demand for an encore strong.

"All right then. One more!" Kuvira yelled to the screaming crowd. She looked to P'Li "Care to start us off?"

The guitarist nodded, she'd been waiting all night to pick the next song—evidently she chose the easiest one to head bang too, she'd found a very spiffy way of incorporating her braided hair. She strummed a few notes.

That's all it took to set the crowd wild. All the energy in the room resurfacing.

Kuvira probably would have chosen to end the night with a slower song, but she'd go with it.

From across the stage—hiding behind her large drum set (the woman had nicknamed it her 'drum kingdom'), Ming-Hua seemed to have wanted a slower song herself. Kuvira wondered if it was possible for her little water arms to get sore and tired.

She knew her throat was growing sore. One more night of harsh both harsh and operatic vocals would probably do her in. Perhaps she should hire someone to do the harsher vocals as she took on the higher operatic ones?

Kuvira was through the first chorus—by now P'Li was going all out; braid whipping from left to right, vertically, and at points in circles. To her left Baatar seemed to be putting it all fourth as well. The man had long since ripped his shirt off (drawing swoons from the ladies, and a few men in the crowd) and tossed it to their eager hands.

Ever since he had gotten that steampunk dragon tattoo he'd been tossing his shirt off left and right. It was worse than when he was showing off his gauges.

Though Kuvira had bought that one on herself; it was her idea to get the piercings in the first place. The whole band got at least one. Kuvira herself had probably the most of them; an arch of rings on both of her brows—the final ring on her right brow linked by a small chain to a different piercing on her ear. She'd also decided to get her collarbone pierced as well.

Ming-Hua wasn't as adventurous, shekept it simple with only a small navel piercing…didn't even get her ears pierced.

P'Li was also pretty simple—the woman was more of a tattoo type. The only piercing she got was one on her arm, a small ruby stud that acted as an eye for her firey lion tattoo.

Kuvira on the other hand preferred not to have any ink on her body.

She came to the final note of her song. She bent her neck forward and drew it back, taking the hair out of her face. She remained with her head turned to the ceiling and stretched her arms out to her sides, inviting the crowd to resume cheering.

And cheer they did.

Kuvira exhaled…these shows were exhausting.

These shows were just the beginning.

Battle of the bands was not even a week away. And her band would be facing their long-time rivals; PsychBreak. That band was one composed of young ones—they couldn't yet be out of their teens—and yet both vocalists were powerful; the female an alarmingly good screamer and the male did pretty wicked (and contrasting) clean vocals.

Kuvira beckoned the rest of Iron Lotus forward, she could swear that this was Ming's first time emerging from drum kingdom all night.

The woman shimmied upstage, took a quick bow, and tossed her drumsticks to the crowd—one to the loudest cheerer in the front and one aimed randomly towards the back. P'Li and Baatar took a much slower, unison bow. After which the two flicked their guitar picks.

Traditionally Kuvira was the last to take her bow. It was one of more elegance, one in which she swooped down and shook hands with a few audience members. It was all she could really offer, as it didn't sit well with her manager when she handed her mic off to one of the fans. Apparently it was 'too expensive to just toss around.'

The band lingered around for an extra while shaking the hands of as many fans as they could get to. Allowing for an occasional hug and a camera flash. Ming always seemed to get the most camera love—apparently she was squishy and huggable.

Baatar always ended up a tad jealous, so Kuvira would often ease that jealousy by pulling him closer to her, re-adjusting his hipster glasses, and eventually giving him a hug of her own. That was how the two landed at the top of 'Music's Hottest Couple' chart. Though Kuvira didn't quite see what was so hot about a simple hug or two…after every show.

The noise didn't die down in their tour bus either. P'Li and Ming were conversing rather loudly with Iron Lotus' makeup team about how close battle of the bands was. Well, Ming wasn't very loud, the raven haird woman uttered maybe a sentence or two a night. And of course the conversation took a turn to how well the show went; as P'Li put it, "tonight's show was bitchin' had a helluva time. Think that was one of my best head bangs."

At least Baatar was quitter. He and Kuvira had flopped down on the nearest seats, his hand in hers.

"You going to get changed into something more comfy?" He asked.

"Anything is comfy when you don't want to get up and change." She grinned.

"Of course." He chuckled.

"You hear about this!?" P'Li exclaimed loudly, practically shoving a magazine in Kuvira's face.

Ming jumped at the sudden remark.

"What is it?" Kuvira muttered.

"Apparently people are speculating that PsychBreak is gonna beat us out this year." P'Li paused. "How are you so calm about this, we've only been training our asses off for months to win that competition!"

"Take it down a notch will ya?" Baatar put a hand to his forehead. "I mean, relax, those guys are new to the industry…just debuted what?"

"A month ago." Kuvira filled in.

"Just debuted a month ago. They aren't going to win."

Ming gave an agreeing nod.

"I need a light." P'Li dug around in her purse for a pack of cigarettes. It was a habit of hers. Every time a new stressor arose, the lighter would magically come out. Kuvira hopped this habit wouldn't rob her of her bandmate and friend.

"Outside the bus please." Baatar requested.

P'Li rolled her eyes but headed for the door anyhow.

"So when are you two going to end this little feud of yours?" Kuvira asked.


	2. Midnight Musings

Zuko tossed his beanie onto his night stand, nearly knocking down one of the bedside lamps, and flopped onto the bed.

"Watch it Zu-Zu, I don't plan on handing the hotel any more of my money." Azula rolled her eyes. The girl was sitting before a mirror fumbling with one of her many small hoop earrings. She was on the third, slowly removing them all. After which she planned on switching out her snake bites, and possibly the nose ring.

Image it was all about image, Azula decided. If they were going into the metal scene they'd look the part as well. Zuko was perhaps more into that idea than she was. In addition to his single ear piercing he'd got a whole mural of tattoos up and down his arms, over his chest, and on his back. Azula had lost track of what art was painted beneath his hoodie. She hadn't planned on getting any ink done herself however Zuko insisted that she at least got their band's logo on her arm. That's how she ended up with a trial of flames coiling around her arms and a rose just above her waist.

At this point she may as well uphold that image.

She pulled out the final piercing. "Where are Mai and Ty-Lee?"

"Down at the pool." Zuko replied. "I told them to get up here soon."

"Well they better listen, we have a show tomorrow and I won't accept a performance that is anything less than perfect."

"Relax, Ty-Le only has to pound two sticks around and I'm sure Mai is capable of playing the keyboard just fine no matter how tired she is."

"Right." Azula twirled her bangs around her finger.

Kuvira rolled onto her side to face Baatar. His arm still draped over her waist, the man was sleeping quite soundly next to her. She pressed her forehead against his chest.

It was at around two in the morning when P'Li finally decided to end her cigarette break. She closed the door not so quietly behind her. Ming nearly fell off her bed.

"Must you?" Baatara grumbled through his sleepy haze.

"Just let it go." Kuvira mumbled to him. "Go back to sleep."

"Why aren't you asleep yet?" He replied after a brief period of quite.

"Just thinking. Thinking too much perhaps."

"About?"

"Well for one thing, how we can have a rivalry with a band that's only about a month old…a band that's made up of four children."

"It only took them a month to ruin our tour."

"Shouldn't we just forget about that." Kuvira asked. It seemed that in this day and age she was content to just let a lot of things go…to let the past be the past. And in this day and age there was quite a lot she'd like to put behind her. The Baatar and P'li feud that was putting a rift in their band, the incident with PsychBreak, and the lack of support her parents ever provided.

That above all else was what kept her awake on that night.

This was supposedly the most tour she'd ever lead the band through…the most important series of concerts. And her parents couldn't be bothered to come, not that she expected them to. She was only eight when she had taken a shine to singing.

Apparently that was already a red light to her parents. She'd signed herself up for the school talent show and did a cover of Cher's Believe. She'd won…not that her parents were there to see it. When she got home that night they had a long talk about how singing, writing, painting, any of the fine arts really were to be kept as little hobbies and nothing more.

Only days later at the parent-teacher conference Mrs. Hazlebourn made the mistake of showing Kuvira's parents her 'Dream Book'. Each of the students had written one. On the very last page Kuvira had written under 'dream career' that she had wanted to be a singer—at the time for a pop trio—along with some lyrics (that's she'd sooner throw her had on a blade than preform live) and a little self-insert story about her dream performance.

Of course her parents didn't make a scene in front of Mrs. H—in fact, they actually pretended to be proud.

But when they got to the car the scolding began.

They asked her if she was serious about this silly dream, saying it would get her nowhere. She managed only a yes or two through her tears.

The next day they tossed her to the streets claiming she wouldn't amount to anything more anyways…and that she'd end up on the streets eventually, no sense delaying the inevitable.

It was cruel.

Heartless.

She didn't hold it against Mrs. Hazlebourn, the woman didn't mean any harm.

"You listening to me?" Baatar asked. "You even awake?"

"Sort of."

"Sort of what? You're sort of listening to me or you're sort of awake?"

"They go hand in hand." Kuvira re-adjusted the position of her pillow.

"Perhaps we should finish this conversation in the morning?" Baatar suggested.

"That would probably be for the best."

"Yes, let's talk about PsychBreak and the issues they caused in the morning, because starting my day off with a cup of milk and a nice bowl of shitty memories is just what I need." P'Li growled.

And the banter between she and Baatar resumed.


End file.
